Eastern Christianity comprises Christian traditions and church families that originally developed during classical and late antiquity in Western Asia, Asia Minor, Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, the Caucasus, Northeast Africa, the Fertile Crescent and the Malabar coast of South Asia, and ephemerally parts of Persia, Central Asia and the Far East. The term does not describe a single communion or religious denomination.
The history of Christianity in Ukraine dates back to the earliest centuries of the history of Christianity, to the Apostolic Age, with mission trips along the Black Sea and a legend of Saint Andrew even ascending the hills of Kyiv. The first Christian community on territory of modern Ukraine is documented as early as the 9th century with the establishment of the Metropolitanate of Gothia, which was centered in Crimean peninsula. However, on territory of the Old Rus in Kyiv, Christianity became the dominant religion since its official acceptance in 989 by Vladimir the Great, who brought it from Byzantine Crimea and installed it as the state religion of medieval Kyivan Rus (Ruthenia), with the metropolitan see in Kyiv.
The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) is a major archiepiscopal sui iuris ("autonomous") Eastern Catholic church that is based in Ukraine. As a particular church of the Catholic Church, it is in full communion with the Holy See. It is the second-largest particular church in the Catholic Church after the Latin Church. The major archbishop presides over the entire Church but is not distinguished with the patriarchal title. The incumbent Major Archbishop is Sviatoslav Shevchuk.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada is an Eastern Orthodox church in Canada, primarily consisting of Orthodox Ukrainian Canadians. Its former name was the Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church of Canada (UGOCC). The Church, currently a metropolis of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, is part of the wider Eastern Orthodox communion, however was created independently in 1918.
The Russian Greek Catholic Church or Russian Byzantine Catholic Church is a sui iuris Byzantine Rite Eastern Catholic Church of the worldwide Catholic Church. Historically, it represents a both a movement away from the control of the Church by the State and towards the reunion of the Russian Orthodox Church with the Catholic Church. It is in full communion with and subject to the authority of the Pope of Rome as defined by Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches.
John H. Erickson is an Eastern Orthodox American scholar, with specialization in the areas of Orthodox canon law and church history. From 2002 until 2007, he served as the Dean of Saint Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in the United States. His term as dean expired on 30 June 2007 and he was replaced by Fr. John Behr.
Andrey Sheptytsky, OSBM was the Greek Catholic Archbishop of Lviv and Metropolitan of Halych from 1901 until his death in 1944. His tenure in office spanned two world wars and seven political regimes: Austrian, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Soviet, Nazi German, and again Soviet.
The Ukrainian Catholic University is a Catholic university in Lviv, Ukraine, affiliated with the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) was the first Catholic university to open on the territory of the former Soviet Union.
The Priestly Society of Saint Josaphat Kuntsevych (SSJK) is a society of traditionalist priests and seminarians originating from the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church which is led by the excommunicated priest Basil Kovpak. It is based in Riasne, Lviv, Western Ukraine. In Lviv, the society maintains a seminary, at which currently thirty students reside, and takes care of a small convent of Basilian sisters. The SSJK is affiliated with the Society of St. Pius X and Holy Orders are conferred by the latter society's bishops in the Roman Rite. The SSJK clergymen, however, exclusively follow a version of Slavonic Byzantine Rite in the Ruthenian recension.
Klymentiy Sheptytsky, was an archimandrite of the Order of Studite monks of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and was a hieromartyr. Klymentiy has been beatified by the Catholic Church, as well as awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations by the State of Israel for saving Jews. As effective leader of the church, he was arrested and died a prisoner of the Soviet Union.
The Union of Uzhhorod, was a decision by 63 Ruthenian priests of the Orthodox Eparchy of Mukachevo to join the Catholic Church made on April 24, 1646. Until rediscovery of its founding document in 2016, academics had debated the actual date of union, whether a document had been signed, and even whether the Union of Uzhhorod had even transpired at all.
Nykyta Budka was a clergyman of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church who lived and worked in Austria-Hungary, Canada, Poland, and the Soviet Union. In Canada, he is noted as the first bishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Canada, and was the first Eastern Catholic bishop with full jurisdiction ever appointed in the New World.
Sergey Vladimirovich Golovanov is a priest of the Russian Greek Catholic Church of the Byzantine Rite.
Robert Francis Taft was an American Jesuit priest, first in the Russian Greek Catholic Church and later an archimandrite of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. An expert in Oriental liturgy, he was a professor at the Pontifical Oriental Institute from 1975 to 2011 and its Vice-rector from 1995 to 2001.
Borys Gudziak is the current Metropolitan-Archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia. He founded the Institute of Church History and served as the rector and president of the Ukrainian Catholic University. He was previously ordained as a priest, and later a bishop. Gudziak has authored and edited several books on church history, theology, modern church life, and higher education reforms.
Peter Galadza is a Canadian Greco-Catholic priest and theologian. He is director emeritus and professor emeritus of liturgy at the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies in the Faculty of Theology, University of St. Michael's College, Toronto, Canada, and a member of the Faculty of Graduate Studies at the Toronto School of Theology. In 2003-2004 he was a fellow at Harvard University's Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Research Center. In 2007 he was awarded a major, three-year, grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) to study Ukrainian liturgical manuscripts. From 2010 to 2012 he was president of the international Society of Oriental Liturgy, founded by Robert F. Taft, SJ.
Boniface Joseph Luykx was a Norbertine priest in Belgium, a Roman Catholic liturgical expert, and a founder/Hegumen of a Ukrainian Greek Catholic monastery in Northern California. A polyglot, he had a photographic memory and was instrumental in the motivation and preparation for Vatican II.
Iwan Dacko is a priest of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, was personal secretary of Patriarch Josyf Cardinal Slipyj, a close collaborator and Chancellor of Myroslav Ivan Cardinal Lubachivsky, President of the Institute of Ecumenical Studies at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, Ukraine, a long-time member of the Joint International Commission and its Coordinating Committee for the theological dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.
The Eastern Catholic Churches of the Catholic Church utilize liturgies originating in Eastern Christianity, distinguishing them from the majority of Catholic liturgies which are celebrated according to the Latin liturgical rites of the Latin Church. While some of these sui iuris churches use the same liturgical ritual families as other Eastern Catholic churches and Eastern churches not in full communion with Rome, each church retains the right to institute its own canonical norms, liturgical books, and practices for the ritual celebration of the Eucharist, other sacraments, and canonical hours.
